Posts tagged ‘denise levertov’

This is an excerpt from the poem “Annunciation” by Denise Levertov. I read this poem last advent when on a wonderful Advent Retreat with Michael Fish, OSB Cam, at Santa Sabina Center in San Rafael, CA. The poem can be found on the Education for Justice website.

‘Hail, space for the uncontained God’
From the Agathistos Hymn, Greece, VIC

We know the scene: the room, variously

furnished,

almost always a lectern, a book; always

the tall lily.

Arrived on solemn grandeur of

great wings,

the angelic ambassador, standing or

hovering,

whom she acknowledges, a guest.

But we are told of meek obedience. No one

mentions

courage.

The engendering Spirit

did not enter her without consent.

God waited.

She was free

to accept or to refuse, choice
integral to humanness.

Aren’t there annunciations

of one sort or another

in most lives?

Some unwillingly

undertake great destinies,

enact them in sullen pride,

uncomprehending.

More often

those moments

when roads of light and storm

open from darkness in a man or woman,

are turned away from

in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair

and with relief.

Ordinary lives continue.

God does not smite them.

But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.

Source: “Annunciation” from The Stream and the Sapphire, by Denise Levertov. New York: New Directions Publishing, 1997

March 25th, nine months before Christmas – the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus, is celebrated this day in Lent. So today’s Lenten poem from Education for Justice is
Annunciation by Denise Levertov.

This year, because we are in the midst of Holy Week, the feast has been transferred to April 8th. But I don’t mind celebrating twice! 😉

Annunciation

‘Hail, space for the uncontained God’ From the Agathistos Hymn,Greece, VI

We know the scene: the room, variously furnished,almost always a lectern, a book;always the tall lily.

Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings,the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering,whom she acknowledges, a guest.

But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentionscourage.

The engendering Spiritdid not enter her without consent. God waited.She was freeto accept or to refuse, choiceintegral to humanness.____________________________

Aren’t there annunciationsof one sort or anotherin most lives?

Some unwillinglyundertake great destinies,enact them in sullen pride,uncomprehending. More oftenthose moments when roads of light and storm open from darkness in a man or woman,are turned away fromin dread, in a wave of weakness, in despairand with relief.

Ordinary lives continue.

God does not smite them.But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.______________________________

She had been a child who played, ate, sleptlike any other child – but unlike others,wept only for pity, laughedin joy not triumph.

Compassion and intelligencefused in her, indivisible.Called to a destiny more momentousthan any in all of Time,she did not quail, only askeda simple, ‘How can this be?’and gravely, courteously,took to heart the angel’s reply,perceiving instantlythe astounding ministry she was offered:to bear in her womb

Infinite weight and lightness; to carry in hidden, finite inwardness,nine months of Eternity; to containin slender vase of being,the sum of power –in narrow flesh,the sum of light.

Then bring to birth,push out into air, a Man-childneeding, like any other,milk and love –

but who was God.

Source: “Annunciation” from The Stream and the Sapphire, by Denise Levertov.
New York: New Directions Publishing, 1997.

Maybe He looked indeedmuch as Rembrandt envisioned Himin those small heads that seem in factportraits of more than a model.A dark, still young, very intelligent face,a soul-mirror gaze of deep understanding, unjudging.That face, in extremis, would have clenched its teethin a grimace not shown in even the great crucifixions.The burden of humanness (I begin to see) exacted from Himthat He taste also the humiliation of dread,cold sweat of wanting to let the whole thing go,like any mortal hero out of his depth,like anyone who has taken a step too farand wants herself back.The painters, even the greatest, don’t show how,in the midnight Garden,or staggering uphill under the weight of the Cross,He went through with even the human longingto simply cease, to not be.Not torture of body,not the hideous betrayals humans commitnor the faithless weakness of friends, and surelynot the anticipation of death (not then, in agony’s grip)was Incarnation’s heaviest weight,but this sickened desire to renege,to step back from what He, Who was God,had promised Himself, and had enteredtime and flesh to enact.Sublime acceptance, to be absolute, had to have welledup from those depths where purposedrifted for mortal moments.

Source: “Salvator Mundi: Via Crucis” from The Stream and the Sapphire, by
Denise Levertov. New York: New Directions Publishing, 1997

As swimmers dareto lie face to the skyand water bears them,as hawks rest upon airand air sustains them,so would I learn to attainfreefall, and floatinto Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,knowing no effort earnsthat all-surrounding grace.

Source: “The Avowal” from The Stream and the Sapphire, by Denise Levertov.
New York: New Directions Publishing, 1997.

To lie back under the tallest
oldest trees. How far the stems
rise, rise
before ribs of shelter
open!

To live in the mercy of God. The complete
sentence too adequate, has no give.
Awe, not comfort. Stone, elbows of
stony wood beneath lenient
moss bed.

And awe suddenly
passing beyond itself. Becomes
a form of comfort.
Becomes the steady
air you glide on, arms
stretched like the wings of flying foxes.
To hear the multiple silence
of trees, the rainy
forest depths of their listening.

To float, upheld,
as salt water
would hold you,
once you dared.

To live in the mercy of God.

To feel vibrate the enraptured

waterfall flinging itself
unabating down and down
to clenched fists of rock.
Swiftness of plunge,
hour after year after century,
O or Ah
uninterrupted, voice
many-stranded.
To breathe
spray. The smoke of it.
Arcs
of steelwhite foam, glissades
of fugitive jade barely perceptible. Such passion—
rage or joy?
Thus, not mild, not temperate,
God’s love for the world. Vast
flood of mercy
flung on resistance.

Source: “To Live in the Mercy of God” from Sands from the Well, by Denise
Levertov. New York: New Directions, 1996.